The Great Gatsby

In-Class Essay

40 Points

Directions:

Below are several topics for you to choose from for your essay on The Great Gatsby. These are only meant to be starting points. You will be required to create an original statement of thesis, the main point that you will argue in your essay. Then you will write a 4 paragraph essay that must include a minimum of two quotes (at least one per body paragraph) Each body paragraph should include a topic sentence, one chunk (1 quote and 2 commentaries) with context and lead-in for the quote, and a conclusion/transition sentence. Essay must include a proper

Works Cited

page.

Topic 1:

Is Daisy capable of measuring up to Gatsby’s expectations of her? Explain why or why not.

Topic 2:

Discuss the point of view. Is Nick the most effective narrator, or could the story have been told better from another character’s point of view? Explain.

Topic 3:

Why does Daisy stay with Tom rather than leave him for Gatsby?

Topic 4:

Is Gatsby a sympathetic character? (Can/Should the reader feel sorry for him?) Why/Why not?

Topic 5:

What judgments does F. Scott Fitzgerald make about the wealthy and their society in the novel The Great Gatsby?

Topic 6:

Some critics believe that Nick, not Gatsby, is the hero of the story. Who is the real hero (protagonist) of The Great Gatsby, Nick or Gatsby?

Requirements:

· Typed, 12-point, Times New Roman Font, Double Spaced

· Heading and Header

· Creative Title

· Follows the 4-paragraph format: Introduction, Body paragraphs (at least 2), Conclusion

· 2 quotes from the novel. Use correct citation.

· MLA Works Cited page

· Free of grammar and spelling errors

Quotes for Essay Usage:

· “it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again” (2).

· “It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things” (13).

· “Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens… you mean to say you don’t know?… I thought everyone knew… Tom’s got some woman in New York” (15).

· “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (17).

· “With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur” (30).

· “‘It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce.’ Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie” (33).

· “It was on of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across for or fives times in life… Precisely at that point it vanished- and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd” (48).

· “She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges (deceit) when she was very young” (58).

· “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before” (92).

· “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself…he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98).

· “She was appalled by West Egg…by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand” (107).

· “Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can…I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before…She’ll see” (110).

· “She hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing – and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all” (132).

· “Oh, you want too much!…I love you now – isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past…I did love him once but I loved him too” (132).

· “I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight – watching over nothing…He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free” (145).).

· “something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately – and the decision must be made by some force – of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality – that was close at hand” (151).

· “They were careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money…and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (179).

· “when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock…his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him” (180).

· “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (180).

Create a proper MLA citation and works cited page using the following information:

Title: The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Publisher: Scribner

Publication Year:1925

Example Proper Works Cited Page in MLA Format:

Works Cited

Author Last Name, First Name. Title. Publisher. Publication Year.